The Guardian award-winning novel about courage, friendship and war.

When a bomb during an air raid destroys Harry's home and kills his family, he knows that he is all alone in the world and has only himself to rely on. Anxious that he will be sent to live with his fussy Cousin Elsie he goes on the run across the war-battered land of North East England, his only friend in his journey a stray dog that he meets on the beach. Will Harry ever find a place to call home again, or will he be on the run forever?

Robert Westall was born October 1929, in Tynemouth, England. His first book, The Machine Gunners, was published in 1975, for which he won the Carnegie Medal. Amongst many more prizes and accolades, he won the Carnegie for the second time in 1980, with The Scarecrows. He died in 1993.